Potential HIV Vaccine

Researchers have found a potential HIV vaccine, after many years of research.  Scientists say they have discovered three human antibodies that will neutralize over 90 percent of the current circulating HIV-1 strains.

Peter Kwong, chief of structural biology in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that although previous antibodies were quite promising, they sometimes had structural challenges that made them more difficult when it came to vaccine production.

Kwong went on to say “With this information we know the human immune system can make the antibodies, and this suggests the capability of the human body to make them in mass.”

In 1985, scientists discovered the HIV virus for the first time. HIV is a virus can be transmitted from person to person through the exchange of body fluids. The most common way a person can contract the disease is from sexual contact, but it can also be transmitted by sharing needles or during childbirth and breastfeeding.

As HIV/AIDS reproduces, it damages the immune system of the body.  HIV/AIDS is the world’s leading infectious killer and was responsible for an estimated 2 million deaths in 2008.  Approximately 33 million people are living with the disease around the world

The researchers are now one step closer to their goal, and remarked that “still much more research will be needed and that these results are just the first step of a long investigation.”

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